April is a strategic month for hospitality businesses: spring has officially arrived, and travelers are on the lookout for ideas to enjoy the first sunny days and celebrate Easter.

What does this mean? It’s the perfect time to use email marketing to attract new direct bookings and nurture relationships with your guests.

That’s why in this article, we’ll explore two types of communication strategies that can improve your performance during Easter and the spring holidays: commercial newsletters with targeted special offers, and informational newsletters to maintain guest relationships and pave the way for summer bookings.

3 golden rules for creating effective hotel email marketing strategies

Email marketing isn’t complicated, but it’s also not something you can improvise. To ensure your emails drive the desired results, you need to meet three key conditions:

1. Send your email campaign at the right time

Sending the right message at the right time can make the difference between an email being trashed or a guest making an immediate booking.

For example, if you want to promote an offer for the May 1st holiday, you need to send your newsletter at least a month in advance. This allows you to capture potential guests precisely when they are browsing for ideas—or inspire those who haven’t yet thought about traveling.

To succeed, you'll need to prepare not only your sales strategy (offers, packages, etc.) early in the year, but also pair it with a content calendar, detailing exactly when to send your offers or informative emails.

2. Send the right message to the right person

Just as crucial is tailoring your content based on each recipient’s specific characteristics. This doesn't just mean translating your email into the reader’s language—it’s about ensuring your offer reaches only those genuinely interested.

For example, to promote an offer for April stays, you might target not only past guests who stayed during this time of year but also anyone who previously requested a quote or information about your property.

This requires precise segmentation of your contact database. You should divide your contacts into groups based on criteria like:

• Attributes (gender, birthday, family or couple travelers, etc.)
• Loyalty (total spend or total nights stayed to identify top, loyal guests)
• Geography (local, national, or international travelers)
• Channel/market (preferred booking channel like direct, OTA, business travel, etc.)

3. Ensure consistency in template and tone of voice

Even though each email campaign may have a different objective, maintaining a consistent, professional template is essential—the basic structure of the email should always stay the same.

A consistent template helps recipients immediately recognize your communication and your brand. Here are some guidelines:

• Clear, well-defined structure: use the same layout for each campaign, with a header, main body, and closing. Any call to action (CTA), like a button to redeem a discount code, should be highly visible.
• Consistent tone of voice: define your brand’s voice (formal, informal, etc.) and adapt it to each communication, but always stay true to your identity.
• Responsive design: ensure your emails are viewable and legible on all devices, especially mobile, where most users open emails.
• Clarity and simplicity: avoid cluttering the email with too many details or distracting elements. Focus on one main message without ambiguity.
• Personalization: whenever possible, personalize the email with the guest's name or include content based on their previous preferences.

Once these three key conditions are met, you can move on to crafting and sending your email campaign.

How to use Smartconnect for effective email marketing in April

One of the most common mistakes when planning an email marketing campaign is focusing solely on the offer, while neglecting the three conditions we just discussed.

The result? Even if the packages you offer are commercially attractive, there’s a risk of “wasting” them through poorly timed or poorly targeted communication. Alternatively, some hoteliers choose to delegate email marketing to third parties, which can mean sacrificing budget and precious time to coordinate collaborators or agencies.

If you want to continue managing email marketing internally without making things complicated, the solution is to use a tool like Smartconnect.

By using it, you’ll not only ensure you meet all three key conditions of effective email marketing, but also receive suggestions on which newsletters to send—all automatically.

Let’s see how!

How to schedule email marketing at the right time with Smartconnect

With Smartconnect, sending emails at the right time is simple. The software itself suggests three types of newsletters to cover all the most strategic periods, ensuring you never miss an important opportunity. Here’s what they are:

Traditional newsletters

These include communications such as seasonal opening announcements or holiday greetings. For example, at Easter, the software might suggest sending a holiday greeting to all guests who have stayed at your property at least once. See the sample screenshot.

You can decide to send it immediately (by clicking “Send now” in the upper right) or schedule it for a different day (by clicking “Scheduled send”).

Additionally, you can personalize the suggested newsletter (by clicking “Edit layout”). For example, you might adjust the text to include a link to a blog article or invite readers to visit your Instagram profile to see images from Easter celebrations or updates live from your property.
This simple yet meaningful gesture shows care and attention, helping to keep your property top of mind, especially during late April when many guests begin planning summer vacations.

Event promotion newsletters

The software will automatically notify you of upcoming local events and suggest messages to promote them, targeting guests who are most likely to be interested.

Low occupancy newsletters

If integrated with Smartpricing, Smartconnect can detect low occupancy periods and suggest newsletters designed to boost bookings, for instance, by including a discount code previously created in your booking engine.

How to segment your database and select the right audience with Smartconnect

With Smartconnect, you don’t need to deal with Excel files or .csv imports to segment or manage your contacts. The software is built to integrate smoothly with your PMS, automatically importing all guest data and their booking habits.

In the “Audience” section, you’ll immediately find the most relevant guest segments the software suggests targeting.

For example, in the screenshot below, you can see how Smartconnect suggests a specific audience for the April offer—namely, all guests who stayed at your property during the previous spring season.

How to ensure consistency of template and tone with Smartconnect

To ensure visual and communicative consistency in your newsletters, Smartconnect provides you with a basic template that is clear and easy to read. This template is automatically personalized with your property’s logo, colors, and images.

To customize it, simply go to the "Settings" section, as shown in the screenshot below

IIn the “Brand” section, you can upload your visual elements to ensure that every email reflects your hotel’s identity. Similarly, in the “Tone of communication” section, you can select the tone you want to use—formal, informal, friendly, direct, or automatically selected by the software based on the content. This tone will be applied automatically to all newsletters, ensuring a consistent and uniform communication style.

Further down, in the “Discount codes” section, you can add the codes created in your booking engine to use in your email marketing campaigns. In the sample screenshot, you can already see the code EASTER2025 added.

How to create a newsletter to increase Easter bookings with Smartconnect

At this point, the software has all the necessary information to suggest a newsletter specifically aimed at boosting bookings during the Easter period. Simply go to the “Newsletter” section to find the content suggested by Smartconnect.

In the example screenshot below, you can see how the software has selected the right audience and proposed a dedicated Easter campaign to promote your 15% discount code, targeted at guests who have already stayed with you during the same period in the past.

Even in this case, just like with the Easter greetings newsletter, you are free to modify the email text, choose to send it immediately, or schedule it for a different date.

Email campaign ideas to create with Smartconnect

The example just shown is only one of the possible offers you could send in April to generate additional bookings.

Here are three examples of newsletters you can implement with Smartconnect, both in the short and long term:

1. Offer special rates for extended stays, perfect for guests looking to enjoy spring at a slower pace. By offering a discount for longer stays, you can attract customers who want to spend more time at your property. An example subject line for this promotion might be: "The longer you stay, the less you pay: special April offer."
2. Stay + experience offer, which includes seasonal activities such as spring tastings, bike tours, or spa access. These offers add value to the stay and attract guests who are looking for unique experiences. An example subject line for this campaign might be: "Relax & explore: stay with experience included."
3. Early booking offer, rewarding guests who book their summer stay in advance. This promotion helps secure more direct bookings early on. An example subject line could be: "Book your summer trip now and save up to 20%."

If you want to unlock the full potential of email marketing without increasing your workload, Smartconnect is the platform for you.

But that’s not all: by using all the software included in the Smartness platform, you’ll be able to implement an integrated strategy in just a few clicks.

From revenue management to marketing, upselling, cross-selling, and guest communication, Smartness helps you achieve all your growth goals with ease.

Want to see how it works?